Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Rick H Wesson wrote:
> heading down the *wrong* path. The access and ability to run a gTLD should
> always be serving some public interest. using size of the applicatnts
> customer base just make barriers to entry isn't a good idea.

     The important barriers now are the barriers to prevent new TLDs.
Look, I'm hardly a fan of AOL or AT&T, and in fact, spend quite a bit of
time opposing various AOL mergers or AT&T's closed ISP/cable platform.
But even I don't see what possible concern one would have in giving a
big ISP a registry for a TLD.   I would guess that they could manage it,
if they could manage a million ISP customers.   

   And if smaller ISPs, or a coalition of smaller ISPs, would do it,
why not that too. 

    But I wouldn't do this for big businesses only, or even only for
business reasons.  Indeed, I am mostly interested in non-commercial
TLDs, including some that would not have huge numbers of users, but that
would accomplish important public interest goals.  But I don't see this
as a zero sum game.   AT&T or AOL's gain isn't necessarily my loss.

   Jamie


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James Love, Consumer Project on Technology    
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